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The effect of input modalities, different levels of task complexity and embodiment on users' overall performance and perception in human-robot collaboration tasks. Master's Thesis to confer the academic degree of Dipl.-Ing. from the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the Paris-Lodron-University of Salzburg by Gerald Stollnberger, BEng. Supervisor of the thesis: Tscheligi, Manfred, Univ.Prof., Dr. Advisor of the thesis: Weiss, Astrid, Dr. Department of Computer Science Salzburg, February 21, 2014 Acknowledgment At this point I want to thank everyone who supported me in writing this thesis. First of all I want to thank my professor and supervisor Univ.-Prof. Dr. Manfred Tscheligi. Without him, this thesis would not have been written. Furthermore, I want to especially thank Dr. Astrid Weiss, my advisor for her encour- agement, helpfulness, and motivation. She spent much time on this project, and also evoked me on this topic and robotics in general. I want to thank my supervisors for giving me the chance to connect hobby (to build and program robots) with work, to have a job in the research, and to get to know the robotics community. My thanks also go to my colleagues from the ICT&S Center, who always helped me with words and deeds for writing this thesis. I am also much obliged to the people participating in my studies. Gratitude also to my mother and father and my sister for their comprehensive support and patience. Furthermore, to my wife and daughter for their love and understanding in this also sometimes exhausting and stressful process. Last but not least, I want to thank my friends and my university colleagues, who ac- companied me during my academic studies. My heartfelt thanks go to all of you. I really appreciate your contributions. Thanks a lot! I Declaration I hereby declare and confirm that this thesis is entirely the result of my own original work. Where other sources of information have been used, they have been indicated as such and properly acknowledged. I further declare that this or similar work has not been submitted for credit elsewhere. Salzburg, February 21, 2014 Signature II Abstract Human-Robot Interaction (HRI) is a growing multidisciplinary field of science. The focus of HRI is to study the interaction between robots and humans with a contribution of social science, computer science, robotics, artificial intelligence, and many more. Nowadays one of the research goals of HRI is to enable robots and humans to work from shoulder to shoulder. In order to avoid misunderstandings or dangerous situations, choosing the right input modality, especially for different levels of task complexity, is a crucial aspect for successful cooperation. It can be assumed, that for specific levels of task complexity, there is always one complementing input modality which increases the corresponding user satisfaction and performance. In order to identify the most appropriate input modality in relation to the level of task complexity, two user studies are presented in this thesis, as well as the complete prototyping process for the robot. The first study was in a public space where participants could choose between two different input modalities (a PC-remote control and a gesture-based interface) to drive a race with a Lego Mindstorm robot against the other participant. The second study was conducted within a controlled laboratory environment where participants had to solve three assembly tasks, which differed in complexity. In order to get the required parts, they had to use three different input modalities (the PC-remote and a gesture-based interface from the first study plus a speech control interface). Besides investigating the correlation of task complexity and input modality, it was explored in this second study, whether the appearance of the robot also has an impact on how the collaboration is perceived by the user. One of the main findings was that all of these factors (input modality, level of task complexity as well as the appearance of the robot) had a severe impact on the results. In addition to that, many interdependencies could be identified, especially between input modality and task complexity. Differences in user satisfaction measures and also in performance were often highly significant, especially for hard tasks. Furthermore, it was found, that the perceived task complexity was strongly dependent on users' cognitive workload, driven by the used input modality, which also emphasized the strong coherency of task complexity and input modality. Regarding the influence of the appearance of the robot, it could be shown, that the human-like shape increased users' self confidence, to be able to solve a task together with the robot without any help of someone else. III Contents 1. Outline 3 2. Introduction 5 2.1. Main Research Questions . 10 2.2. Research Sub-Questions . 10 3. Related Work 12 4. Prototype 21 4.1. The Purely Functional Robot . 21 4.2. The Anthropomorphic Robot . 24 4.3. The Input Modalities . 24 4.3.1. The Mobile Gesture-based Interface . 25 4.3.2. The Speech Control . 27 4.3.3. The PC-remote Control . 31 5. User Studies 33 5.1. Preliminary Study in a Public Context . 33 5.1.1. Methodology . 34 5.1.2. Measures . 35 5.1.2.1. Performance Measures (Behavioral Level) . 36 5.1.2.2. User Satisfaction Measures (Attitudinal Level) . 36 5.1.3. Results . 37 5.1.3.1. Performance Measures (Behavioral Level) . 38 5.1.3.2. User Satisfaction Measures (Attitudinal Level) . 39 5.1.4. Summary of the Preliminary Study . 41 5.2. Controlled Laboratory Study . 43 5.2.1. Methodology . 43 5.2.2. Measures . 48 5.2.2.1. Performance Measures (Behavioral Level) . 48 5.2.2.2. User Satisfaction Measures (Attitudinal Level) . 48 5.2.3. Results . 51 5.2.3.1. Performance Measures (Behavioral Level) . 51 5.2.3.2. User Satisfaction Measures (Attitudinal Level) . 53 5.2.4. Summary of the Laboratory Study . 60 6. Discussion 61 7. Future Work 65 1 A. Appendix A.1. Workshop Position Paper accepted for the 2012 IEEE International Sympo- sium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN) . A.2. Late-breaking Report accepted for ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction 2013 . A.3. Data Consent Form for the Preliminary Study . A.4. Questionnaire used in the Preliminary Study . A.5. Output of the Data Analysis of the Preliminary Study . A.6. Data Consent Form for the Laboratory Study . A.7. Studycycle . A.8. Questionnaire concerning the User Satisfaction Measures used in the Labora- tory Study . A.9. The NASA Raw Task Load Index used in the Laboratory Study . A.10.The Goodspeed Questionnaire about Anthropomorphism in German . A.11.Full Paper accepted for the 2013 IEEE International Symposium on Robot and Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN) . A.12.Output of the Data Analysis of the Laboratory Study . 2 1. Outline The goal of this work is to investigate whether there exists an interdependency between input modalities and task complexities, and its effect on performance and user satisfaction in human robot interaction (especially in a cooperative scenario). Therefore, three different input modalities were implemented to control a robot prototype, which was realized by using the Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 toolkit. The input modalities used in the user studies were: • A traditional PC-remote control using the keyboard for commanding the robot, • a mobile gesture-based interface on an Android mobile which depends on the accelerom- eter sensor of the mobile, • and a speech control system using directly the voice of the user. In order to evaluate the approach, two user studies were conducted involving behavioral and attitudinal measures. This thesis is structured as follows: • In the first chapter a short overview about the history of robotics is given, followed by the research objectives and research questions. • The second chapter depicts the related work, especially regarding the state of the art of input modalities in the field of HRI, as well as the motivation for the used input modalities in this work. • The third chapter explains the process and design of the robot prototype used for the two user studies and, moreover, describes the planning and the implementation of the three input modalities. Also some problems during the design process are described. 3 • The fourth chapter is about the two user studies (one in a public context, and one in a controlled laboratory setup) which were conducted in order to achieve the research goals and to answer the research questions. Firstly, the study setup is described, followed by the results of each study and a short summary of the most important findings. • In the conclusion, the research questions are answered and discussed. • The chapter about future work contains a short description about the prospective work, which could be performed in order to deepen the understanding of the impact of task complexity in HRI. • In the appendix, three already accepted papers of this research, as well as all the questionnaires used in the studies, and the outputfiles of the data analysis are provided. 4 2. Introduction The history of robots is a long and diversified one. (cf. [YVR11], [Bed64]) Already in the ancient world first experiments with machines were conducted. Around 420 B.C. Archytas of Tarentum [Arc05], a Greek mathematician, for example, created a wooden steam pro- pelled bird, which was able to fly and was storied to be the first known robot (depicted in Figure 2.1). Figure 2.1.: Archytas of Tarentum's Dove (mobile.gruppionline.org) Similarly, Heron of Alexandria [Her99] described more than a hundred machines, for example automatic music machines or theaters in the first century A.D. and earlier.

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